Become a Cyber Security Champion

Whether you have been an engineer for years or have just begun your career, including cyber security as part of your daily work schedule is of the utmost importance especially if your organization does not have a dedicated cyber security team. By protecting your computer and networking systems from potential hackers and cyber-attacks, you will be defending your organization’s data from hackers and cyber-criminals who want to exfiltrate it. 

So, what does it take to be a champion in your organization? You probably have an analytical mind and an exceptional understanding of technology but other technologies such as Firewalls, VPN, Intrusion Detection and Prevention, Web Proxy, Encryption, Security Information and Event Management and Data Leakage technologies may be foreign to you. Another important facet is having excellent problem-solving skill and the ability to “think outside of the box”. 

While this list is nowhere near exhaustive, here are a few things you can do to start your cyber security journey:

• Review your cyber security policies to assure your technologies align with them 
• If possible, become part of your organizations cyber incident response process
• When working with systems keep security at top of mind
• Work with your team to evaluate the level of security monitoring while looking for any gaps where critical technologies are not being monitored and create a plan to remediate those gaps
• Follow security blogs and articles related to the technologies used at your Company
• Make sure your organization knows where its data resides. Having this information will be very valuable if you suffer an attack or breach

Some people think of cyber security as just another “check the box” function, but when it comes to protecting your data and your company’s reputation, it plays a crucial part in preventing breaches and attacks by malicious actors. 

On a final note, many engineers who begin as cyber security champions as a “side job” go on to become Cyber Security Engineers whose only function is to protect their organization. Your company can only gain from your stepping up and becoming a Cyber Security Champion.